News about NC’s Primary – currently 3/15/16

The North Carolina General Assembly has been ordered to fix the congressional district redistricting maps. It is possible that NC’s primary will have to be moved back to accommodate these changes or to accommodate delays in getting fixed maps approved. Or that there will be 2 primaries – a late one on Congressional districts and an early one for other races.

On Feb. 5, 2016, a panel of federal judges invalidated two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts. The three-judge panel ruled that North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts were racial gerrymanders and ordered them redrawn by Feb. 19, 2016. Read more about this at “Questions abound after judges invalidate 2 NC congressional districts.”

North Carolina got 2 weeks to redraw the maps. They didn’t hold meetings for public input until the second week.

A similar federal lawsuit is challenging the legislative maps drawn in 2011, as discussed in “Challenging NC’s legislative districts.” NC’s new legislative districts may also be found to be unconstitutional. “The North Carolina Supreme Court has twice approved the congressional and legislative maps, ruling against voters and groups such as the NAACP that complained black voters were packed into a select number of districts,” as stated in WRAL’s “Federal court strikes down NC congressional district maps.”

For the primary on this new early date of March 15, 2016, here are the relevant dates and links to information people may need.

Be sure you are registered to vote and do so – for sure by the general election. Even better – for the primary. Finding any problems now will ensure you are ready for November.

To see if you are (or your friends and family and anyone else is) already registered to vote, go toNC’s public voter search. Type the name in and click on the appropriate person. You will see voter details, polling place, jurisdictions and can view sample ballots. You can also view voting history.

Thursday, March 3 – Early voting period begins for March Primary – time and locations vary by county, so do a search like ‘nc early voting wake county’. Following that search for early voting in Wake County in google, the list of Wake County’s early voting sites and dates and times is here.

Note: they cut out voting on the last Sunday (so you can’t vote on March 13) – and Saturday (March 12) voting stops very early, at 1pm.